Nomad Pizza 611 South 7th St. (215) 238–0900

Don't Miss: Truffle Pizza Skip: House Salad

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Allegro’s no more!  Opened this past February right off of South St., Nomad Pizza offers a simple but exceptional menu of four salads and 12 pies that are all worth the move downtown.  Ranging from your traditional margherita pizza to more extravagant clam and truffle pecorino pizzas, the menu has it all. Twelve inches in diameter, the pizzas are served with a personal wheel–cutter that let you choose a portion size that suits your liking. We ordered the arugula con prosciutto ($18), spicy sausage ($14), truffle pecorino ($18) and clam ($19) for a group of five and loved the eclectic flavors. The crust was neither exceptionally thin nor thick. Toppings were fresh, local and often organic, and were well–balanced with sauce and dough.

The truffle pizza proved sensational; voted best by the five of us, the imported mozzarella di buffalo, local cheese, large farm eggs and shiitake mushroom slivers offered an incomparable fusion of flavors complemented by pungent black truffle oil. Sweet and pervasive, the combination melts on your tongue.

We were delightfully surprised by the arrival of an off–menu nutella pizza (about $12) that Nomad’s owner, Stalin Bedon, had our waitress bring out to us.  Topped with nutella, banana, powdered sugar and roasted hazelnuts, the innovative dessert was hard to put down, even on slice number five.

A two–story restaurant, Nomad houses a large wood–fired pizza oven on the ground floor, and its bar and communal seating on the second. The informal, homey mood inside allowed for an unhurried Friday evening. At long communal tables, we relaxed to peer at our neighbors’ dishes before placing our own orders.  Old movie posters wallpapered the room and flanked the projector screen that was located in an elevated, central position, for the free Wednesday and Sunday movie night features.

The service was speedy, our waitress was pleasant and the owner was accommodating. If I didn’t love pizza before, Nomad did the trick.